This course follows the extraordinary development of Western Christianity from its early persecution under the Roman Empire in the third century to its global expansion with the Jesuits of the early modern world. We explore the dynamic and diverse character of a religion with an enormous cast characters. We will meet men and women who tell stories of faith as well as of violence, suppression, and division. Along the way, we encounter Perpetua and her martyrdom in Carthage; the struggles of Augustine the bishop in North Africa; the zeal of Celtic monks and missionaries; the viciousness of the Crusades; the visions of Brigit of Sweden; and the fracturing of Christianity by Martin Luther’s protest. We hear the voices of great theologians as well as of those branded heretics by the Church, a powerful reminder that the growth of Christianity is a story with many narratives of competing visions of reform and ideals, powerful critiques of corruption and venality, and exclusion of the vanquished. The troubled history of Christian engagement with Jews and Muslims is found in pogroms and expulsions, but also in the astonishing ways in which the culture of the West was transformed by Jewish and Islamic learning.
We shall explore the stunning beauty of the Book of Kells, exquisitely prepared by monks as the Vikings terrorized the coast of England. We will experience the blue light of the windows of Chartres, and ponder the opening questions of Thomas Aquinas’ great Summa. We will read from the Gutenberg Bible of the fifteenth century, which heralded the revolution brought by the printing press. We will travel from Calvin’s Geneva to Elizabeth’s England to Trent, where a Catholic Council met to inaugurate a modern, missionary Catholic church. We will walk through the great Escorial of Philip II of Spain, hear the poetry of John of the Cross, and follow the Jesuits to Brazil and China.
Christianity in the West was forged in the fires of conflict and tumult, and it brought forth both creativity and violence. It echoed with calls for God’s world to be transformed, it inspired the most sublime art and architecture, yet it also revealed the power of the union of cross and sword to destroy. The course is a journey through the formation of the West as one strand of Christianity, as one chapter in a global story. It is a journey that has shaped our world.

Reviews

RR

This is a really good course. While the readings were occasionally overwhelming (and dull), the content was generally interesting. I found the main lecturer to be particularly engaging.

AW

Jun 20, 2017

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

Well developed and presented course.. It'll be good to have it continued from 1650 to where the Christian faith is today. I'll be very interested to be part of it if it is developed.

From the lesson

Medieval Devotion

“Medieval Devotion,” moves away from the universities and cathedrals of Europe and investigates the lives of ordinary Christians trying to maintain their spiritual lives in an era almost 1000 years ago. The Church developed and popularized many devotional practices in this era, a number of which remain a part of Christianity today. Sacraments, saints, relics, pilgrimages, and the papacy are examined in this module, as all experienced an enormous growth in importance during the medieval era. Many of these features of Christianity became controversial, with Protestant reformers of the sixteenth century rejecting some of these devotional and ecclesiological features.

Taught By

Bruce Gordon

Transcript

The sacraments marked not only the entrance into the body of Christ, but also follow the cycle of life itself. From birth until death, we find in the sacraments the expression of the divine relationship with humanity. Days after they were born, infants were baptized in parish churches. Of course, part of this was out of fear of high mortality rates. But at baptism, the vows were taken by godparents who on behalf of the child would accept Christ, His salvation and the promises of the church. Baptism was an indelible mark, it was never to be repeated. And of course, the authority by which it was done goes back to Christ himself who submitted, as we see in this picture by Giotto, to the baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. God the Father, voice descending, saying this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased. Baptism was the beginning of life and initiation into the church. It was followed within a few years, generally when the child was between five and seven, by confirmation. Carried out by a bishop, it was the moment in which the young person affirmed those vows that had been made by their godparents. Confirmation was a continuing entry point into the church and one's life within it, by taking on a responsibility of one's own, a beginning point to be able to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist within the church. The Sacrament of Ordination, set apart for males alone, for those who were to be entering into the priesthood of the church, who would accept, as was to be the case in the medieval church, celibacy. Though we know that within large parts of the western Christianity, various forms of clerical marriage continued to exist. Or at least, relations continued to exist in which there would be children. Many of the reformers of the 16th century came from such clerical families. But nevertheless, officially the clergy were marked by an obligation to celibacy. But also a state which separated them fundamentally from the laity. They were to be the administers of the sacraments, except in the case of matrimony. Which during the Middle Ages well, largely did not require a priest. But was still a sacrament within the church because Christ himself had honored it by his presence at the marriage at Cana. The human marriage was part of the relationship of Christ himself, to his church. Also we have extreme unction represented here in the painting of the sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden in 1445. Extreme unction represented the final stages of life. The last opportunity to make a full confession. The moment before one most likely entered into purgatory, the priest was to be by the bedside to ensure the demons who struggled to take the soul of the individual to bring upon him despair and loss of faith did not prevail. The anointing was done with oil that had been sanctified on Maundy Thursday by a bishop. At the heart of the sacramental life of the Medieval Church were confession or penance and the Eucharist. The Lateran Council of 1215 had declared that every Christian was obliged to make a full confession to a priest once a year. And then receive the Eucharist reminding us that most people did not communicate frequently, although their experience of the mass would be considerable. That confession, which required contrition and repentance and satisfaction was a necessary step to a purging that allowed one to receive the body of Christ. And most Christians, of course, within the Medieval Church received only the bread and not the cup. Perhaps one of the most marvelous expressions of this sacrament of the Eucharist comes from the story of St. Gregory's mass. And Gregory in the 6th century was celebrating the sacrament in the presence of one, a deacon who doubted. And as Saint Gregory prayed for the one who was doubting, the body of Christ arises from a tabernacle on the altar. But the Christ who appears is the man of sorrows, his wounds all too evident with blood pouring down him. Christ on the altar, the very body of Christ present at the sacrament, the heart of the church's Eucharistic teaching. That in the doctrine of transubstantiation, the bread and the wine truly become the body of Christ. And Christ enters into the life of the church, is in a continuous relationship with the church. This story which is found later in the Golden Legend of the 13th century becomes a favorite image of the late middle ages, part of the devotional culture of the body of Christ, the Corpus Christi, which marked the piety of the period. During the Medieval Period, the seven sacraments marked the transition of the whole Christian life. It also marked what it meant to belong to the body of Christ. They were expressions of every aspect of entry and of sustaining through the Eucharist and confession, through the relationship of marriage, to the very performance of the sacraments through the priesthood, which is also responsible for the pastoral care of the people, to the end when the church would anoint those who were dying. The sacraments were an essential part of the reformation attack on the Medieval Church when the number would be reduced from seven to two. But through the later Middle Ages, the life of the church was determined by those marks of true Christianity. And we find in art, in the piety, and in the very institutional life of the church, the pervasive influence and shaping of the sacraments.

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